EAGER: Acoustic Wireless Sensors Communication in Soils

部署用于监测已建成基础设施的传感器对于收集有关建设期间基础设施性能及其长期健康状况的信息至关重要。传感器还可以在极端事件发生期间和之后提供有关基础设施状况的关键数据，并普遍有助于我们城市的弹性。目前在地下使用有线连接来收集数据，但有一些限制：(a)拥塞：由于传感器是通过钻孔安装的，因此可以安装在井眼中的电线数量有限，因此传感器数量有限；(b)连接：有线连接是安装的薄弱环节，这些连接很容易退化并暴露在周围环境中。一旦暴露，数据就不能再传输了。该奖项将探索水下无线声学通信技术在土壤无线通信中的应用。这项工作包括该无线技术的实验和现场测试。将开发新的算法和技术，使无线数据编码、调制、传输和接收成为可能。由于土壤中的信号衰减比水中更大，并且由于地下土壤的成分不均匀，预计将面临挑战。然而，初步的概念验证测试已经清楚地证明了这种无线传输的可行性。这是一个高风险、高回报的项目，汇集了岩土工程、仪器仪表、海底声学数据传输和信号处理方面的专业知识。预计潜在的应用将远远超出传感器的数据传输，并可能实现地表以下的移动数据连接和定位服务。这项工作有可能彻底改变土壤中的数字数据传输。这些技术的成功发展可以将无线通信从地面上带到土壤内，并导致地下通信成本的大幅降低和数据传输可靠性的提高。它可以消除在腐蚀性的城市环境中容易损坏的长通信电线装置的需要，这些环境指的是暴露于腐蚀性化学品，杂散电流和地下水，大型建筑机械和故意破坏造成的损坏。除了该项目的技术发展具有突破性的性质外，这项工作的成功将在全球范围内产生具有商业潜力的新技术。巨大的经济效益和在美国创造跨多个学科的高薪技术工作是可能的。这些发展可以实现无处不在的基础设施传感，特别是在我们城市中心不可或缺的地下基础设施中。水下无线声学通信技术已经发展了几十年，广泛用于海上油气和其他海底工业以及海军作业。伊利诺伊大学在这项技术上取得了重大进展，最近在动物组织中进行了每秒兆比特的声学通信研究，在水中进行了每秒数百兆比特的声学通信。

Deployment of sensors for monitoring built infrastructure is essential for collecting information on the infrastructure performance during construction, as well as on its long-term health. Sensors can also provide crucial data on the state of the infrastructure during, and in the aftermath of extreme events, and contributes generally to the resiliency of our cities. Wired connections are currently used below ground to collect data, but have a number of limitations: (a) Congestion: As sensors are installed via drilled boreholes, there is a limit on the number of wires that can be installed in the borehole and therefore a limit to the number of sensors, and (b) Connections: Wired connections are weak points in the installation and it is not unusual for these connections to degrade and become exposed to the surrounding environment. Once exposed, data can no longer be transmitted. This EAGER award will explore the application of underwater wireless acoustic communication technology to wireless communications through soils. The work includes both experimental and field testing of this wireless technology. New algorithms and techniques that enable wireless data encoding, modulation, transmission, and reception will be developed. Challenges are expected due to greater signal attenuation in soils than in water and due to the non-uniform composition of subterranean soils. However, preliminary proof-of-concept testing has clearly demonstrated the feasibility of such wireless transmission. This is a high-risk, high-payoff project that brings together expertise from geotechnical engineering and instrumentation and subsea acoustic data transmission and signal processing. Potential applications are expected to go well-beyond data transmission for sensors and possibly enable mobile data connections and location services below the ground surface. This work has the potential to revolutionize digital data transmission through soils. The successful development of these technologies could bring wireless communications from above ground to within the soil, and result in a dramatic reduction in subterranean communication costs and increases in data transmission reliability. It could eliminate the need for long communication wire installations that are prone to damage in a corrosive urban environment, denoted by exposure to corrosive chemicals, stray currents, and groundwater, damage from large construction machinery and vandalism. In addition to the breakthrough nature of the project's technical developments, the success of this work will spawn new technologies with commercial potential worldwide. Major economic benefits and the creation of high-paying technical jobs across multiple disciplines within the US are possible. These developments could enable pervasive infrastructure sensing, especially in underground infrastructure that are integral to our urban centers. Underwater wireless acoustic communication technologies have been in development for a number of decades and are used extensively in the offshore oil and gas and other subsea industries as well as in naval operations. Significant developments have been made in this technology at the University of Illinois where megabit-per-second acoustic communication research has been recently demonstrated through animal tissue and hundreds-of-megabits-per-second acoustic communication have been demonstrated through water.